One of the essentials that figure in an entrepreneur’s schedule is attending networking meetings, developing new contacts and maintaining and strengthening relationships with existing ones. At one of the National Achievers’ Conference at Bangalore, India – the networking guru Itzik Amiel shared some interesting insights on his field of expertise – Attention Networking.
According to him giving ‘Authentic Attention’ to other people is the secret ingredient to reaching out to and connecting with other people. He believe that highly successful people are different from everyone else in the way they use the ‘Power of Attention’ to build relationships, both in business and in their personal lives, so that everyone wins.
Learning new strategies to help you reach out and deeply connect with colleagues, friends, and prospects – the people who will help you reach amazing success is the central idea of his work.
Here are some interesting takeaways from Itzik’s work:
- Pay genuine attention when listening to people who come in contact with you, regardless of the place you meet and the person you meet. You never know what that little extra attention can do to strengthen a light relationship into a lifelong one. It is never about how much you know, as much as it is about how much you care.
- Understand that this attention is required in both spheres of life – business and personal. How you do one thing is how you do everything. Don’t be a split personality with networking. Be true to yourself and true to the person you are connecting with. After all, you never know where that dream referral is going to come from – for all you know it could come from your personal network.
- The secret to becoming a successful networker is to be authentic, simple and sincere at all times. This simple quality can take you far and deep with the relationships you build.
- Remember, you don’t own contacts. Contacts are there for you to share as much as you can; so when everyone shares, everyone receives too. Sharing a contact freely also increases your own credibility as a likable and trustworthy person, who is willing to share with others, that which may benefit them.
- And finally, attention networking is all about the art of being just YOU. Genuine, simple, empathetic, good listener with humility. This quality single handedly can make you a gatekeeper in your circles and a very important and loved networker.
Try these techniques the next time you find yourself in conversation with others. Networking is all about these simple things and not a whole lot of dogma that gets sold to us. The beauty of it is in the simplicity. Happy Attention Networking!
